Backstory

I probably should get you up to speed on my deal. Let me fast-forward a bit...


I transplanted to the lovely island of Oahu, Hawaii October 2009 with my new husband, Christopher, from Connecticut. We got married in Sep. 20, 2009 on a beach in CT, surrounded by 300 of our closest friends and family members. Okay it was a circus but I loved every minute of it!


Back on the "mainland" I was working as a journalist at my first big-girl gig until I got the short end of the economic stick in January 2009 — Don't cha just love surprises! Laid off with not much else to do, I single handily planned my entire wedding in about a few weeks and to keep my sanity I sub. taught at the high school in my town. I now consider myself a professional wedding planner/circus coordinator.


Cutting the umbilical chord was tough. Ya see Portuguese girls live at home until they are married. I joke a lot with my hubby that I only married him so I could get out of my parent's house... Although we were engaged for 18 months, I lived home because I worked nearby and he lived home because he was still finishing up at school and with the Army he would be doing a lot of traveling *big breath* and it didn't make sense to shell out the dough to play house for a little while.


So once the wedding dust settled and the movers came and moved my entire life into a truck, it was time to put on my big girl panties and bid adieu to my parentals. It became very real to me at the airport that I was leaving all I knew behind and I was about to start my adventure into uncharted territories: marriage and playing house FOR REAL!


Chris officially moved here July 2009 to begin his active duty stint, and I of course followed suit to figure out our housing situation (We had VERY different ideas of what the ideal living situation would be). In all the Army Wife books I read prior to saying 'I do', I presumed we would live on this thing called an installation or post. Well to make a long story short, there was a six month to one year waiting list for a lackluster home on the Army post so we opted to look off-post,


After housing hunting during my two week vacation/pre-honeymoon to Hawaii, we settled on the house that we are still currently living in. It's spacious (four bedrooms-I need space and we acquired lots of goodies from our wedding) and it feels like home, our first home together.


I arrived on island in October and right before Thanksgiving all of our stuff arrived including my car! I was going stir crazy in a house with no furniture, except for the mattress and TV Chris bought when he first arrived (typical male), and not being able to venture out on my own. We took a belated honeymoon cruise of the Hawaiian islands after our first married Turkey Day, because it was the most economical way to see the islands, and since I wasn't working and this place is hella-expensive, it was a cost effective honeymoon ( I am  not complaining, although the cruise experience was a lil lackluster for me *aka read it was like a senior citizen cruise*).


With no luck on the job horizon I took a sub teacher course, very strange that you had to take a class to teach here, and my luck turned around and once our boat docked back in Honolulu, I got my first call to sub teach! I was making pretty good money (anything was better than $0) for a sub. Back home I was only making $75 a day but in Hawaii I was bringing home $160! I held down a few long term jobs until I got the phone call I had been waiting for, a job FINALLY opened up at the Hawaii Army Weekly, the Army newspaper on post! When I paid my first visit to Hawaii July 2009 I had sent an email to the editor inquiring if they were hiring. At the time they were not, but the editor said should the hiring freeze list, they would let me know. Low and behold almost a year later, I went in for the interview and got the job, *Que the angels and the choir* and I have been the news editor/writer/photographer for almost a year now.


Present...
I'm finally feeling like myself again. Having to depend on someone was tough for me. I got my first job when I was 14 and have always made my own money.  Now that I have a job that I love (most of the time), friends my OWN age in my SAME situation and an adorable lil pup, life in Hawaii is pretty good =)